The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-022-10093-7

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Ineffectiveness of flood cooling in reducing cutting temperatures

during continuous machining
Sinan Kesriklioglu1

Received: 10 May 2022 / Accepted: 5 September 2022 / Published online: 19 September 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2022

Abstract
Water-based metalworking fluids are applied in the form of a liquid jet to flood the entire cutting zone and increase the tool
life. The objective of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of flood cooling in reducing the tool chip interface tempera-
tures during continuous cutting. An instrumented smart cutting tool with a thin film temperature sensor was fabricated to
accurately measure the real-time cutting temperatures from 1.3 µm below the tool chip interface in orthogonal turning of AISI
4140 steel under dry and flood cooling conditions. The cutting process was simulated in Deform 2D with the Johnson–Cook
material model to present the transient temperature distributions on the coated cutting insert. The heat flux into the cutting
tool was also estimated analytically and then three-dimensional finite element heat transfer simulations were performed to
determine the maximum convective heat transfer of the cutting fluid in steady state. The measurements with the embedded
thermocouple showed that flood cooling with a water-based cutting fluid slightly lowers the tool chip interface temperature.
Moreover, the chip color may not be a good characteristic indicator to evaluate the cutting temperature in machining of
metals. It was also found that flood cooling becomes more effective at a distance of approximately 150 µm from the cutting
edge where the chip does not contact the rake face of the cutting tool.

Keywords Turning · Flood cooling · Cutting temperature · Modeling · Simulation

1 Introduction of the machining area with coolant nozzles although it has

High strength and abrasion resistant steel alloys are mostly
used to produce the critical parts including gears, hydraulic
shafts, pumps, spindles, and collars in the automotive indus-
try. The machining operations (e.g., turning) are performed
at high cutting speeds and feeds to improve the manufactur-
ing efficiency as a consequence of high material removal
rates. However, severe plastic deformation at high strain
rates and friction at the tool workpiece interface enhances
the temperature rise in the cutting zone, and results in accel-
erated tool wear, more frequent tool change, poor surface
finish, dimensional deviation, and increase in the cost per
part. Active cooling strategies can be used to control the
cutting temperatures in the turning operation. The most com-
mon and commercial technique is the conventional flooding
* Sinan Kesriklioglu
sinan.kesriklioglu@agu.edu.tr
1 the cutting speeds of 130–190 m/min. The wear rate with
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty
of Engineering, Abdullah Gul University, 38080 Kayseri,
Turkey
several adverse effects on the operators’ health as well as
environmental pollution due to the presence of potentially
dangerous chemicals in the oil-based metal working fluids
[1]. Moreover, the economic impact of the flood cooling
is significant. Klocke and Eisenblätter [2] reported that the
cost of the coolants can be as high as 17% of the total manu-
facturing cost. This percentage is even several times higher
than the cost of tools (2–4%). Therefore, the cutting fluid
must be efficiently employed in the machining operation to
remove the heat from the cutting zone and enhance the pro-
cess stability.
The ability of flood cooling to improve the tool life has
been investigated through various methods. Seah et al. [3]
performed turning experiments on two different medium
carbon steels with uncoated tungsten carbide inserts to
study the effects of water-soluble cutting fluids on the cra-
ter and flank wear. Contrary to what is commonly believed,
the experiments showed that the application of flood cool-
ing increases the magnitude of both wear mechanisms at
coolant was also greater at the first stages of the cutting
when compared to the dry machining. Avila and Abrao [4]

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3958 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
investigated the performance of flood cooling with emulsion
and synthetic cutting fluids over dry condition in continu-
ous machining of hardened AISI 4340 with alumina-based
mixed cutting tools. The longest tool life was obtained when
using emulsion cutting fluids without mineral oils. The tool
wear with the synthetic and emulsion cutting fluids includ-
ing mineral oil was larger than the one in dry machining.
Moreover, reducing the concentration of the fluid from 5 to
3% increased the tool life at the cutting speed of 400 m/min
while it did not affect the tool wear rate at 200 m/min. Jayal
and Balaji [5] studied the influence of the metalworking
fluid applications including the conventional flood cooling
on the tool wear in cutting of AISI 1045 steel with various
tool surface modifications (e.g., coating, chip breaker). It
was observed that the crater wear on the PVD-coated cut-
ting tools was larger in dry machining with flat-rake cut-
ting tools, and the tools with chip breakers increased the
magnitude of it under dry and flood cooling conditions. At
the moderate and high cutting speeds, the flank wear was
always smaller under conventional flood cooling conditions
when using flat-faced multi-layer CVD-coated tools. How-
ever, Khrais and Lin [6] reported that the conventional flood
cooling has an adverse effect on the tool life in machining
of AISI 4140 steel with titanium aluminum nitride (TiAlN)-
coated cutting inserts. A similar trend was also observed in
cutting of a duplex stainless steel with the titanium carbon
nitride-coated cutting tools [7]. Revuru et al. [8] conducted
cutting experiments with coated tools on a medium car-
bon steel and the statistical analysis clearly showed that the
average tool wears are similar during dry machining and
conventional cooling.
Various studies were also conducted to investigate the
influence of the flood cooling on the roughness of the
machined surface. Paul et al. [9] studied the role of different
cooling approaches on the surface finish in turning of AISI
1060 steel with two different chip breaker geometries. Dur-
ing the machining tests under conventional flood cooling,
the surface roughness increased at a higher rate than the
dry machining in both type of cutting inserts. Dhar et al.
[10] observed that conventionally applied cutting fluid
negatively affects the surface roughness in turning of AISI
4340 steel with carbide inserts and the growth rate increases
with the machining time when compared to the dry cutting.
No significant improvement in the surface roughness was
obtained in turning of AISI 4140 steel with a vegetable oil-
based cutting fluid [8] while emulsion based flood cooling
could reduce the surface roughness by 15% in machining
of a stainless steel [11]. Although the flood cooling could
improve the surface finish at low cutting speeds and feeds
in cutting of C45 steel with TiAlN coated tools [12], the
results of the mean and peak to valley surface roughness
were also similar when turning of AISI 4140 steel with
ceramic tools [13]. This could be due the electrochemical
13
interaction between the cutting tool and workpiece material
under flood cooling conditions.
Tribological effects of the cutting fluid have also been
investigated to explore the possibility of reduction in the
friction coefficient during turning operations. Cutting and
thrust forces were measured in machining of AISI 1045 steel
with flat and grooved cutting tools [5], and it was found that
all the types and applications of the cutting fluid used in the
experiments could not decrease the friction at the tool and
workpiece interface. Tangential, radial and feed forces in
turning of AISI 1045 steel with PVD-coated cutting inserts
were analyzed at various cutting speeds and feeds under
dry and flood cooling conditions [12]. It was observed that
the cutting fluid did not provide any significant improve-
ment on the resultant forces within the range of the cutting
parameters used in the machining tests. Orthogonal turning
experiments were also conducted on the AISI 4130 steel
under flood cooling [14], and machining force components
were measured to study the performance of the cutting fluid
in the machining process. The results showed that the cutting
force was not significantly influenced by the conventional
flood cooling while noticeable reduction was obtained in
the thrust force at low feed rates. Rajaguru and Arunacha-
lam [15] observed that the application of a water miscible
oil in turning of a super duplex stainless steel can cause an
increase in the axial and tangential forces by approximately
2 and 5%, respectively, in comparison to dry machining.
Due to the intense contact between the tool and work-
piece in the machining process, the cutting fluid cannot
provide a desired penetration through the interface, and the
cooling effect of it become more important than the lubri-
cation in continuous machining [16–18]. Therefore, the
research has tended to focus on evaluating the performance
of the cutting fluids in terms of cutting temperatures. An
IR thermographic image was used to measure the cutting
temperatures in turning of AISI 4140 steel under dry and
cooling conditions [19]. It was found that the flood cooling
can provide a temperature drop by 49% at a cutting speed of
100 m/min. Sivaiah and Chakradhar [11] observed that the
flood cooling reduces the temperature by 45% in machin-
ing of 17–4 PH stainless steel when compared to the dry
machining conditions. However, as the authors reported that
the low temperatures measured by the infrared thermom-
eter may not show the actual cutting temperatures since the
chips and cutting fluid block the IR radiation. Ji et al. [14]
placed a standard thermocouple wire below the cutting insert
and used a thermal camera to study the effect of cooling
on cutting temperature, and the measurement results with
dry condition in orthogonal turning of AISI 4130 steel were
compared. As expected, the temperature measurements with
the thermocouple were much lower than the thermal cam-
era measurements because it was located far away from the
cutting interface and caused a temperature decrease due to
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
the conduction heat transfer. However, significant reduction
in the cutting temperature was observed with flood cooling
in both measurement methods. Hoyne et al. [20] drilled a
0.7 mm diameter hole with electrical discharge machining
to insert the thermocouples for the measurement of cutting
temperatures in turning of Ti-6Al-4 V workpiece. A fiber
optic two-color pyrometer with a diameter of 0.5 mm was
also placed into the blind hole machined under the rake face
to investigate the influence of the coolant pressure and flow
rate on the cutting temperature during machining of aero-
space materials [21]. This measurement technique was also
used by Liu et al. [22] in cutting of AISI 1045 steel. There
was no noticeable difference in the machining temperature
under dry and wet cutting conditions at a cutting speed of
150 m/min and uncut chip thickness of 300 µm. Moreover,
flood cooling increased the cutting temperatures at lower
speed or feed. In these methods, the temperatures can be
easily measured using the standard temperature sensors, but
the machined holes weaken the strength of the cutting tools
and cause chipping during the turning process. Moreover,
the size of the thermocouple bead is much larger than the
uncut chip thickness and contact length used in the turn-
ing operations. Since steep temperature gradients exist in
the cutting zone [23], the results of conventional flooding
may not reveal the actual trend of cutting temperatures when
the measurement junction of the sensors is exposed to the
impingement of cooling jet. Therefore, the temperature at
the tool chip interface is needed to be obtained accurately
and characterized for better understanding of the cooling
mechanism of conventional flooding.
The tool work thermocouple technique [24] has been uti-
lized to measure the mean tool chip interface temperature in
continuous machining operations. Kurimoto et al. [18] inves-
tigated the effect of aqueous fluids on the cutting tempera-
ture in the turning operation. The temperature measurements
by the tool work thermocouple method concluded that the
cooling ability of the cutting fluids is inversely proportional
to the concentration ratio. The temperature drop was lower
at high cutting speeds and feed. Dhar and Kamruzzaman
[25] also used this technique to study the effect of cool-
ing condition on the average tool chip interface temperature
in turning of AISI-4037 steel with coated carbide inserts.
The measurement results showed that the conventional
flood cooling enabled to decrease the cutting temperatures
by approximately 7%. In turning of AISI 9310 steel with
uncoated carbide tools, the reduction was by 40 °C at a cut-
ting speed of 250 m/min [26]. Although these studies show
the coolant performance of the conventional flood cooling
to some extent, the uncertainty in the calibration of the tool
work thermocouples has not been clarified yet. Since the
temperature gradients changes with the cutting parameters
through the coated layers of the cutting, the contribution rate
of each coating layer to the net electromotive force (emf)
3959
will be different. The secondary thermocouple junction
will also exist when the chip contacts to the tool material
at different location than the interface and it will cause a
variation in the thermal emf generation. Moreover, since the
water-based metalworking fluids are electrically conductive,
it could influence the seebeck coefficient obtained during
the calibration.
The objective of this work is, thus, to accurately deter-
mine the temperatures in the cutting zone during orthogonal
turning of AISI 4140 steel and evaluate the cooling effect of
conventional flood cooling beyond the dry machining. Previ-
ous studies [23, 27] proved the ability of the instrumented
cutting tool with an embedded thin film thermocouple to
measure the tool chip interface temperatures in turning of
alloy steels. By following the recipe developed in the pre-
vious research [27], the thin film temperature sensor was
deposited on the rake face of a standard carbide tool, and the
entire cutting tool was electrically isolated to measure the
cutting temperatures under flood cooling and dry condition.
The transient and steady-state cutting temperatures were also
predicted for the coated cutting tools to assess the cooling
ability of the cutting fluid.
2 Methodology
This section briefly provides a temperature measurement
technique to determine the tool chip interface temperatures
during the machining process under dry cutting and flood
cooling conditions. A two-dimensional finite element soft-
ware was used to simulate the transient cutting process under
dry machining and convection cooling. Three-dimensional
thermal analysis was also performed to compare the perfor-
mance of conventional flood cooling over dry machining at
the steady-state conditions. As the effects of conventional
flood cooling on the tool wear (flank and crater), surface
roughness and cutting forces have been studied extensively
and high cutting temperatures lead to rapid tool wear, this
work focused on investigating the influence of flood cooling
on the tool chip interface temperature. Since the thin film
thermocouple is located 1.3 um below the interface and in
the vicinity of the cutting edge, evaluating the performance
of flood cooling with respect to tool life is not within the
scope of this study.
2.1 Experimental setup
An instrumented cutting tool was fabricated by following
the recipe developed in an earlier study [27]. In this method,
an alumina layer was first deposited onto the surfaces of the
square shape uncoated carbide insert to electrically isolate
the cutting tool. Then, the nickel/chromium thermocouple
traces were sputtered on the rake face of cutting tool using
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3960 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
the micro machined aluminum stencils. It was followed by
depositing another dielectric layer to prevent the short circuit
between the thermocouple junction and workpiece. The thin
film thermocouple was also protected by an aluminum tita-
nium nitride layer because it is subjected to high compres-
sive and shear stresses during the cutting operation. With
this instrumented cutting tool, the cutting temperatures can
be measured only 1.3 µm below the tool chip interface.
A tool holder with a rake of 0 degree was designed
and machined in a five-axis mill-turn center (Mori Seiki
NT1000W). Since the cutting tests are also performed under
flood cooling, a cover was designed and manufactured with
3D printing to protect the contact pad connections against
the cutting fluid as shown in Fig. 1a. As shown in Fig. 1b,
custom-made spring-loaded pogo pins were used to make
the electrical connections between the thin film thermocou-
ple contact pads and extension wires. A thermocouple signal
conditioning circuit was used to raise the analog temperature
signals in millivolts to the measurable noise-free levels and
apply the cold junction compensation based on the room
temperature. The temperature signals were then acquired
at a sampling rate of 25 kHz with the National Instruments
9205 module. The accuracy of the temperature measurement
and data acquisition system is ± 1.5% with a resolution of
0.23 °C.
Turning tests were conducted under dry cutting and con-
ventional flood cooling on an annealed, cold-drawn AISI
4140 steel with a measured hardness of 186 HB. A 2 mm
wide rib was first machined to have a constant width of cut
in the orthogonal cutting tests. Since the farthest edge of
the thin film thermocouple is approximately 70 µm away
from the cutting edge, the instrumented cutting tool was then
tested at various cutting parameters so that the measurement
junction is located under the chip flow zone in both cut-
ting conditions. This is because the thin film thermocouples
Fig. 1  a Workpiece, tool, and b
temperature measurement setup
13
measure the average temperatures [28] through the junction,
and the measurements with the instrumented cutting tool
would be misleading where the tool chip contact length is
much greater or smaller than this value. Therefore, a con-
stant surface speed of 200 m/min and feed of 0.050 mm/
rev was determined to study the effect of cutting fluid on
cutting temperatures. The deionized water and mineral oil
(Hocut 795-D) were mixed at room temperature to form a
clear emulsion with 6% running concentration, and it was
applied through the nozzle with a diameter of 2.87 mm at
a flow rate of 5 L/min and a pressure of 3.5 bar to flood the
cutting zone.
2.2 Finite element modeling
The turning operation of the instrumented smart cutting
tool was also simulated to better understand the temperature
distribution through the cutting tool and workpiece. Since
the machining process was orthogonal, two-dimensional
transient finite element modeling was first used to show the
effectiveness of the flood cooling, and compare the predicted
tool chip interface temperatures with the measurements
of the cutting insert with thin film thermocouples. Three-
dimensional steady-state heat transfer analysis was also
performed to present the maximum temperature reduction
of the cutting fluid in the continuous machining operations
with coated cutting tools.
2.3 Transient analysis
A commercially available finite element software
(DEFORM 2D) was used to simulate the orthogonal cut-
ting of AISI 4140 steels. It is based on the updated Lagran-
gian formulation which couples the thermo-mechanical
phenomena at large strain rates. In this FEM software,
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968 3961

Table 1  Johnson–Cook model

parameters for AISI 4140 steel
[31]
A 595 [MPa]
B 580 [MPa]
C 0.023 [-]
n 0.133 [-]
m 1.03 [-]
To 1793 [K]
Tm 300 [K]

Since the fabricated instrumented cutting tool has coating

Fig. 2  Finite element mesh and boundary conditions
automatic remeshing was used to concentrate the meshes
near the cutting region (i.e., primary shear and secondary
deformation zones) so that the high temperature and strain
gradients occurring during the machining process are cal-
culated accurately (Fig. 2). The meshes were also coarsen
away from the machining zone to reduce the computational
time significantly, and simulate the continuous chip forma-
tion per tool advance within a relatively short time [29]. In
this study, 35 elements were specified through the uncut
chip thickness to simulate the transient cutting operation
with a minimum element size of less than 1.5 µm. The
total simulation time was 16 h on a 64-bit computer con-
figured with Intel(R) Xeon(R), 3.6 GHz processor and
64 GB RAM.
The AISI 4140 steel workpiece was defined as elas-
tic–plastic, and the cutting tool was considered a rigid
body. Since the flow stress is strongly influenced by the
temperature, strains and strain rates in the machining
operation, the original form of the Johnson–Cook mate-
rial model [30] was used to describe the material behavior
and chip formation during the orthogonal cutting process.
The flow stress in this model is expressed as
( ( ))( (
T − To m
) )
𝜀̇
(1)
n
𝜎 = (A + B𝜀 ) 1 + Cln 1−
𝜀̇ o T m − To
where A is the yield strength, B is the hardening modulus, n
is the strain-hardening exponent, C is the strain rate sensitiv-
ity, m is the thermal sensitivity, Tm , is the melting tempera-
ture, 𝜀̇ is the strain rate, and To is the ambient temperature.
The reference strain rate (𝜀̇ o) of the workpiece material was
taken as 1.0 ­s−1. All the other parameters were compiled
from [31] and listed in Table 1. A constant shear friction
model with a coefficient of 0.577 [32] was employed to
define the interaction between the cutting tool and workpiece
material at the interface.
layers for electrical isolation and protection, aluminum oxide
and aluminum titanium nitride layers with a total thickness
of 2 µm were defined on the rake and flank faces of the
uncoated tungsten carbide cutting tool material. The nodal
velocities at the bottom of the workpiece material were spec-
ified as 0 and the tool was moved from right to left at the
rate of cutting speed. The rake and flank faces of the cutting
tool as well as the top and left sides of the workpiece are
exposed to the natural and forced convection heat transfer,
respectively, at a constant fluid temperature of 25 °C under
dry and flood cooling conditions. As the FEM software
remeshes the elements automatically during the deforma-
tion, the heat was also removed from the chip surface by
convection at the same rate. Table 2 shows all the physical,
thermal and mechanical properties of the workpiece and tool
materials used in the simulations. Temperature-dependent
thermal properties were also used for the workpiece material
to accurately simulate the cutting process.
2.4 Steady‑state analysis
Three-dimensional steady-state thermal analysis was per-
formed in Ansys software to present the changes in the tem-
perature distribution with and without conventional flood
cooling. The CAD file of the square shape cutting insert
was downloaded for the manufacturer’s website [33], and
aluminum oxide and aluminum titanium nitride layers were
added on the entire surface of the tool because they act as
thermal barriers and significantly affect the heat dissipation
during the machining operation. The total heat flux into the
cutting tool was assumed constant and estimated using the
modified form of Loewen and Shaw’s orthogonal cutting
model [34] with the temperature-dependent thermal and
physical properties of the AISI 4140 steel alloy. Since the
chip is in contact with the cutting tool perfectly at the inter-
face, convection heat transfer was applied on the entire flank
and rake faces except for the contact region. As the thermal
analysis is performed at steady-state conditions, it cannot
be assumed that the back and bottom sides of the cutting
insert are at a constant temperature. Therefore, heat transfer
coefficients on these surfaces were calculated based on the
conduction resistance through the tool holder, and defined

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3962 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
Table 2  Properties of workpiece Property
and tool materials and
conditions Thermal conductivity [W/m K]
Density [g/cm3]
Specific Heat [J/kg K]
Thermal expansion coefficient [µm/m K]
Poisson’s ratio [-]
Shear friction coefficient [-]
Convection heat transfer coefficient [W/m2 K]
Interface heat transfer coefficient [W/m2 K]
in Ansys FEM software. A high density of tetrahedron mesh
structure was also defined around the contact zone and coat-
ing layers since steep temperature gradients are expected in
these regions and the accuracy of the finite element models
are directly related to the element size.
3 Results and discussions
This section provides the tool chip interface temperatures
measured by the instrumented smart cutting tool with thin
film thermocouples. The chips obtained during the machin-
ing process under dry cutting and flood cooling were also
collected to study the influence of the chip formation on the
cutting temperatures. The transient and steady-state tempera-
ture distributions through the cutting tool are also presented
to show the effect of cutting fluid in removing the heat from
the cutting tool during the turning operation of AISI 4140
steel.
Since the previous researches [23, 27] showed the capa-
bility of the embedded thermocouples in measuring the tran-
sient temperatures in oblique turning of low and medium
carbon steels at various cutting parameters, a higher cutting
speed (200 m/min) was selected in this work to have a sig-
nificant change in the color of the metal chips, and inves-
tigate the effect of conventional flood cooling on the tool
chip interface temperatures. The feed was kept constant at
0.050 mm/rev to concentrate the heat input in a relatively
small area for the cutting process while the width of cut was
2 mm in the orthogonal cutting tests. A CNC program was
written to perform the orthogonal turning process at a con-
stant surface speed under dry cutting condition. As shown in
Fig. 3, the turning operation was initially carried out under
dry cutting conditions. The first part of the subsequent cut-
ting process was also machined in dry cutting condition to
show the repeatability of the temperature measurements by
the instrumented cutting tool. Since activating the coolant
pump and delivering the cutting fluid into the machining
zone take time before the wet cutting, a transition (dwell)
time was also defined in dry cutting to avoid the tempera-
ture rise due to the heat accumulation. Figure 3 shows the
13
AISI 4140 WC-6%Co Al2O3 AlTiN
f(T), 41.7–34.1 94 [33] 37 5
7.85 14.85 [33] 3.89 5.22
f(T), 254–610 250 [33] 342 150
f(T), 10.8–14.9 5 8.4 9.2
0.3 0.25 0.22 0.23
0.577 [32]
20 (dry)–60,465 (flood cooling) [34]
100,000 [35]
temperature measurement results with and without the met-
alworking fluids.
As shown in Fig. 3, the cutting tool with the embedded
thin film thermocouple measured the maximum temperature
of approximately 750 °C in both dry and wet machining.
The mean temperatures are 680 °C and 651 °C under dry
machining and flood cooling, respectively. Since the tem-
perature of 29 °C is within the fluctuation of measurements
which could be obtained due to the sticking and sliding fric-
tion of the chips, it is concluded that the change in the tool
chip interface temperature was negligible under conventional
flood cooling. After the machining operation, the tool tem-
perature decreases rapidly as the cooling jet could touch the
chip flow region where the measurement junction of the
thermocouple is located.
Since the color of metal chips has been used to evalu-
ate the level of the chip temperatures in machining of steel
alloys [36–39], the chip formations were also qualitatively
characterized in terms of the color and radius of curvature
to investigate the effect of these parameters on the cutting
temperature. As shown in Fig. 4, the chips were formed rib-
bon widthwise and continuously, and the color of the metal
chip was dark blue in dry machining while it was silverly
white under flood cooling. Since the measurements showed
that cutting temperatures are almost same in both conditions,
the water-based metalworking fluid most likely protected
the steel metal chips against the oxidation at high tempera-
tures. Therefore, the color of chips is not a good indicator
in the comparison of the tool chip interface temperatures
in machining of steel alloys. It was also observed that the
radius of the chips became smaller when applying the cut-
ting fluid onto the machining zone. The coolant could reduce
the temperatures much greater than the natural convection
on the rough side of the chips, create higher thermal contrac-
tions in that region, and cause a reduction in the radius of
curvature. Since the junction of the thin film thermocouple
was located very close to the cutting edge, it did not affect
the temperature measurements during the machining opera-
tion. Otherwise, significant temperature decrease could be
observed due to the large size and/or wrong location of the
sensing device, and it would not give an accurate assessment.
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
Fig. 3  Tool chip interface
temperatures measured by
the instrumented cutting tool
under dry machining and flood
cooling
Further investigation was focused on simulating the
machining operation to understand the temperature distri-
bution and effectiveness of the flood cooling through the
cutting tool. Since the cutting process is orthogonal and the
machined rib is wide enough (2 mm), two-dimensional finite
element analysis was performed in a commercially software
(Deform 2D) to show the transient thermal response of the
coated cutting tool. Natural convection heat transfer with a
coefficient of 20 W/m2 K was used through the workpiece
and cutting insert for dry machining while the average heat
transfer coefficient for the water-based coolant nozzle was
calculated as 60,465 W/m2 K using the analysis of the sin-
gle impingement jets [34]. A heat transfer coefficient of
100,000 W/m K [35] was used between the workpiece and
cutting contact. Figure 5 shows the predicted average tool
chip interface temperatures as a function of time for dry and
Fig. 4  Chip morphology under
a dry machining and b dry and
flood cooling
3963
wet machining. The temperature data was extracted from the
rake face of the cutting tool at a spatial resolution of 5 µm
and the mean of them was calculated in Matlab for each sim-
ulation time step. The largest time interval was less than 1 µs
in the simulations. The maximum average temperature was
predicted to be 618 °C in dry cutting while the application of
the convective cooling can reduce the cutting temperature by
5 °C. It should be noted that the transient FEM simulations
underestimated the tool chip interface temperatures by 9%
and 6% for dry and wet machining conditions, respectively,
although the trend was similar. This could be because of
the total cutting length as the temperatures quickly reach
the quasi steady-state condition and increase slowly dur-
ing the machining operation. Since the real cutting time
was three orders of magnitude larger than the simulations,
which is required to perform the analysis with an acceptable
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3964 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
Fig. 5  Average predicted tool chip interface temperatures under dry
machining and flood cooling
computational time, these deviations are expected for the
comparisons of the experimental and predicted data.
The instantaneous temperature distributions were also
presented to show the chip formation and influence of
the conventional flood cooling in the machining zone. As
shown in Fig. 6, continuous chip formation was obtained as
observed in the machining experiments (Fig. 4). Although
the convective flood cooling reduces the temperature of the
chips to some degrees, the temperature at the tool chip inter-
face is still close to the one in the dry machining because the
cooling is not effective in the contact region. It should also
be noted that unlike the chips obtained during the cutting
tests, there is no visible difference in the chip radius between
the dry and wet machining simulations. This could be due to
the assumption of the uniform convective heat transfer over
the entire workpiece surface including the metal chips. On
Fig. 6  Temperature distribu-
tions under a dry machining and
b flood cooling at the cutting
times of 0.1, 0.4, and 0.7 ms
13
the other hand, the pressure of the cooling jet may act on
the chip surface and cause a decrease in the chip radius. The
coolant pressure could be defined as one of the boundary
conditions and the thermal analysis could be coupled with
the computational fluid dynamic analysis to better under-
stand the effect of flood cooling on the chip formation.
Since the temperature changes in the cutting tool cannot
be seen clearly from Fig. 6, the temperatures of each node
through the rake face were extracted to show the temperature
gradients as a function of position for the specified time
intervals. As shown in Fig. 7, the conventional flood cool-
ing can only provide a temperature drop by 5 °C at the tool
chip interface while the reduction can be approximately four
times larger at a distance of 150 µm from the cutting edge
where the chips are not in contact with the cutting tool. It
is expected that the rate will increase with the cutting time.
Steady-state thermal analysis was also performed to
provide the maximum efficiency of the conventional flood
cooling in removing the heat from the cutting tool. The
heat input was estimated with the analytical heat transfer
model for orthogonal machining [34] which is based on the
Loewen and Shaw’s method [40]. By using the temperature-
dependent thermophysical properties of AISI 4140 steel, the
heat flux for the cutting parameters used in the experiments
was calculated to be 443 W/m2. This value is also consist-
ent with the average heat flux of the transient machining
simulations. It was assumed that the heat transfer rate into
the cutting tool does not change with the tool cooling con-
ditions as the temperature gradients through the interface
were similar in the transient analysis at dry and wet cutting,
and the standard deviation of the tool chip interface tem-
perature at the last step of the transient analysis is 16.6 °C.
Then, three-dimensional thermal analysis was carried out to
present the steady-state response of flood cooling over the
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
Fig. 7  Temperatures through the rake face of cutting tool under dry
machining and flood cooling at the cutting times of 0.1, 0.4, and
0.7 ms
dry machining. Figure 8 shows the temperature distribution
of the instrumented cutting tool with the coating layers of
­Al2O3 and AlTiN.
As can be seen in Fig. 8, the cutting fluid with conven-
tional flooding can greatly decrease the temperature of the
cutting insert except for the contact region because the heat
first needs to spread out through the insert and coating
materials, then it is removed by convection over the rake
and flank faces of the inserts as well as conduction into
the tool holder. The temperature changes through the rake
and flank faces of the cutting tool are demonstrated in
Fig. 9. The maximum cutting temperature was predicted
as 846 °C in dry machining of AISI 4140 steels at steady-
state conditions with a cutting speed of 200 m/min, feed of
0.050 mm/rev and width of 2 mm. As the heat continues
to accumulate in the cutting tool after the quasi steady-
state cutting condition when the temperature is measured
by the instrumented cutting tool, it resulted in a predicted
maximum temperature that was approximately 24% greater
than the experimental measurement. On the other hand, the
deviation between the steady-state simulation and thin film
thermocouple measurements is only 3.5% for conventional
Fig. 8  Steady-state temperature
distributions of the cutting
insert under a dry machin-
ing and b flood cooling with
the heat transfer coefficient of
60,465 W/m2 K
3965
flood cooling condition. It could be because the heat is dis-
sipated from the cutting zone into the cutting tool which
provides greater heat removal by convection. The steady-
state thermal analysis was also performed when the heat
transfer coefficient is halved. It was observed that the flood
cooling can provide temperature reductions of 26% and 20%
to the tool chip interface at the heat transfer coefficients of
60,465 W/m2 K and 30,000 W/m2 K while these percentage
rates are approximately three times higher at only 1 mm
away from the cutting edge. Therefore, the influence of the
flood cooling on the cutting temperature cannot be evalu-
ated accurately when the measurement location of the tem-
perature sensors are not located under the interface region
[20, 21]. On the other hand, the reduction difference was
slightly lower through the flank face since the direction of
the heat flux is perpendicular to the rake face. Decreasing
the heat transfer coefficient by 50%, which can be obtained
reducing the flow rate of the coolant significantly, causes a
temperature increase of 48 °C at the cutting edge. It should
be noted that the convection heat transfer coefficient can
be further increased when using a coolant with higher spe-
cific heat and thermal conductivity. However, the sensitivity
analysis of the tool chip interface temperature showed that
the increase in the heat transfer coefficient of 50% can only
reduce the cutting temperature by approximately 10 °C in
orthogonal turning of Ti6Al4V alloy [34]. Moreover, the
change in the coolant flow rate drives a small impact on
the cutting temperature. On the other hand, reducing the
tool chip interface friction using a cutting fluid with bet-
ter lubricant capacity can significantly decrease the tool
chip interface temperature, but Childs [41] stated that the
lubricant can only penetrate into the contact at low cutting
speeds (less than 30 m/min) and self-lubrication occurs in
machining of steels at high speeds due to the local ther-
mal softening of the chips by the frictional heat. Therefore,
for the cutting parameters used in this study, the tool chip
interface temperature is not expected to change significantly
when flooding the machining zone with another cutting
fluid having better cooling and lubricant capacity.
It should be noted that the time to reach the steady-state con-
dition of the cutting insert is much larger than the continuous
13
3966 The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
Fig. 9  Steady-state temperatures
through the a rake and b flank
face of cutting insert under dry
machining and flood cooling
with heat transfer coefficients of
30,000 and 60,465 W/m2 K
machining time used for the practical applications of turning
operation. Therefore, the real-time temperature measurements
and transient analysis should be used to evaluate the perfor-
mance of the cutting fluids as the interface temperature can
reach about 700 °C within less than a second (Fig. 3). Moreo-
ver, the effectiveness of the flood cooling will become worse
when the cutting tool has a thicker coating. In this study, the
total thickness of coated layers is approximately 2 µm. How-
ever, the coating thickness of the commercial inserts can be
up to 9.5 µm [42] to improve the wear resistance of the cutting
tool in machining of steels alloys. Since the thermal conduc-
tivities of the most protective coating materials are much lower
than the tungsten carbide cutting tools (Table 1), these layers
will increase the magnitude of the spreading and conduction
resistances and significantly reduce the heat removal capabil-
ity of the cutting fluids. The hard coating materials with high
thermal conductivities such as diamond-like carbon (DLC)
can be used to increase the cooling performance of the flood
cooling as the thermal conductivity of DLC coating layer is
in the range of 400 to 1000 W/m K [43]. Moreover, internal
cooling strategies [44] can be preferred and/or the chip forma-
tion should be interrupted [45] to provide an effective cooling
for the turning operations. As shown in all the temperature
measurements and simulations, the conventional flood cooling
is not effective in the turning operation due to the continuous
chip blockage. Therefore, this type of cooling should be used
in milling [46] and vibration or modulation-assisted machin-
ing [47] so that the jet of cutting fluid enters into the cutting
zone to provide the desired cooling and lubrication. However,
although the overall cutting edge temperatures can be reduced
with flood cooling in these operations, it will increase the tem-
perature difference between the active and no active period of
cutting, and the greater thermal cycling load could adversely
influence the tool life.
13
4 Conclusion
This paper presents the tool chip interface temperature
measurements and predictions in orthogonal turning of
AISI 4140 steels under dry cutting and conventional flood
cooling. The cutting temperatures were measured by an
instrumented cutting tool with embedded thin film thermo-
couples located 1.3 µm below the tool chip contact zone.
The real-time measurement results showed that the flood
cooling with water-based metalworking fluids decreased
the average interface temperature by only 4% although it
significantly reduced the radius of the curvature of the
continuous ribbon chip. Moreover, it was found that cut-
ting chips of steel alloys cannot be used for the perfor-
mance comparison of the flood cooling with respect to the
tool chip interface temperature reduction in the continuous
machining operation. Johnson–Cook material model was
also employed on a commercial FEM software to study
the transient temperature distribution through the cutting
zone under dry and wet cutting conditions. The FEM simu-
lations also showed that the convective cooling is most
effective where the chips are not in contact with the cut-
ting insert, and 4 times greater cooling can be obtained
on the rake face farther away from the tool chip contact
area. Three-dimensional steady-state thermal analysis was
performed on the coated cutting tool to show the maxi-
mum possible cooling capacity of the cutting fluid in the
continuous machining operations. It was concluded that
the conventional flood cooling can achieve significant tem-
perature reductions on the cutting tool, except for the tool
chip interface, and using a fluid with 50% lower cooling
ability could lead to a temperature rise by only 7% at the
cutting edge of the coated insert. Therefore, this type of
cooling should be used in interrupted cutting operations
The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (2022) 122:3957–3968
(i.e., milling, vibration, or modulation-assisted machin-
ing) to decrease the overall cutting temperatures in thermal
cycling.
Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges Professor
Frank E. Pfefferkorn and the Machine Tool Technology Research
Foundation (MTTRF) for the availability of the Mori Seiki NT1000/W
mill-turn center.
Author contribution The author is solely responsible for the following:
study conception and design, data collection, analysis and interpreta-
tion of results, and manuscript preparation.
Funding This work was partially supported by the Department of
Mechanical Engineering at the Mus Alparslan University.
Availability of data and material The data obtained in the framework
of this study are available to the journal upon request.
Code availability The codes are available to the journal upon request.
Declarations
Ethics approval Not applicable.
Consent to participate Not applicable.
Consent for publication The author has consented to publish the
research article in the journal.
Conflict of interest Not applicable.
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